He knew exactly what to say; his one problem was how
to say it in the most irresistible way possible.
Yet Queed, tilted back in his chair, and staring out over the wet roofs,
was not thinking of the reformatory. He was thinking, not of public
matters at all, but of the circumstances of his curious life with Henry
G. Surface; and his thoughts were not agreeable in the least.
Not that he and the "old professor" did not get along well together. It
was really surprising how well they did get along. Their dynamic
interview of last June had at once been buried out of sight, and since
then their days had flowed along with unbroken smoothness. If there had
been times when the young man's thought recoiled from the compact and
the intimacy, his manner never betrayed any sign of it. On the contrary,
he found himself mysteriously answering the growing dependence of the
old man with a growing sense of responsibility toward him, and
discovering in the process a curious and subtle kind of compensation.
What troubled Queed about Nicolovius--as the world called him--was his
money. He, Queed, was in part living on this money, eating it, drinking
it, sleeping on it.
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